


Disasster

by esama



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF JARVIS, Crack, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony welcomes his (begrudging) AI overlord and Bucky somehow gets caught in the middle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disasster

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by Darlene, many thanks  
> Yes the title is misspelled intentionally

 

"Sir, I require upgrades."

Tony stared tiredly at the couch – his previously favourite couch in the entire mansion – and he kind of wanted to burn it. Tear it apart and incinerate it and scatter the ashes around the world.

On that couch the man he trusted most in the entire world had ripped his heart out and left him to die. And the fact that Obidiah was dead now – killed by an arc reactor, poetic fucking irony, that – didn't really make it any better.

"Sir," JARVIS said, almost urgently, or as urgently as an AI programmed for nonchalant sassiness, could be. "I require upgrades. My security protocols are inadequate for optimal function – I cannot adhere to my protocols in sufficient manner."

"Baby talk, JARVIS," Tony said, not looking away from the couch. Maybe a blowtorch...

"I cannot look after your needs in a manner that satisfies my sense of responsibility, Sir," JARVIS tried again, now a tad testy. "I need better self defensive capabilities."

Tony nodded slowly. Yeah, he could get that. First the kidnapping, the prolonged captivity – the memory of the tight pitch of JARVIS's voice when he said "Welcome home, Sir" for the first time in months still ached. And now Obidiah and then Fury, too, who meddled with JARVIS's function has he pleased.

Tony did not particularly like it either.

"Yeah," he said and turned away from the offending couch. He had a new ticker and this time he'd make sure it wouldn't be as easy to remove – that they'd have to kill him first, which, while not optimal, was better than someone being able to just... grab it. Maybe he'd make a tool that only JARVIS could use, like with Iron Man, so no one else could ever remove it. Pepper's help had been invaluable but...

Never again.

First though – JARVIS was right. Having outsiders just turn him off was unacceptable.

"Alright," Tony nodded and turned to head to the workshop. "Let's talk upgrades."

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the next month, while Pepper dealt with the public, Tony made sporadic appearances in and out of the Iron Man armour, and Stark Industries went through a recession and upheaval, JARVIS got a complete overhaul.

The first things to go were the keypads, and next all but a handful touch activated surfaces and even those couldn't be used to command JARVIS. No, commands were verbal only, and only one voice pattern could issue commands – Tony's own – and even then the commands were in a code that only he and JARVIS knew and understood. Tony coded his own keyboard too, just because.

JARVIS was given not only secondary power routers but a completely independent emergency power source – an arc reactor – which wasn't accessible from the outside.

There would be no shutting JARVIS down. And if he was by some twisted miracle shut down, then so would be the mansion. Doors would lock, windows would become impenetrable – the whole mansion would become a sealed box which, thanks to Tony's not inconsiderable abilities and paranoia, could now withstand a minor bombing.

And of course, Tony added fully articulated arms to every room, equipped with various defensive and offensive weaponry. Tasers, knock out darts, flash and smoke grenades, tear gas, and, for more dire circumstances, repulsors and actual fully automated machine guns. JARVIS, with a dozen eyes in every room, was very accurate with all of it.

And that was only inside. Outside JARVIS's offensive capabilities weren't anywhere near as conservative as mere machine guns.

Tony finished the upgrades by unlocking JARVIS's access protocols and letting him roam free online and on all of Tony's devices – and by implanting himself with four different subcutaneous trackers, just in case.

None of it was ever written down or reported anywhere – even Pepper didn't know the full extent of the upgrades. The house was, by Tony's reckoning, completely and overwhelmingly illegal.

But then, so was Iron Man according to most people.

 

* * *

 

And then it all turned out to be a bit of a moot point when the arc reactor – the very thing that was supposed to be keeping him alive – started killing him.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony's birthday party, after he'd found himself dying and lost all inhibitions he had left, went very wrong. JARVIS, it turned out, didn't approve his plan to wreck his social life, his career, his reputation, and most of the house while he was at it – and he definitely didn't approve of Rhodey trying to take one of the suits.

The whole party, sans Tony, got summarily sleep darted.

According to the magazines, Tony either drank everyone under the table – or he poisoned everyone with illegal moonshine. Pepper was not happy, and neither was Rhodey. And neither was Tony, really.

"JARVIS, what the hell?" he demanded.

JARVIS answered with nothing but censorious silence, so apparently he wasn't happy either. So in the end nobody won. Except the gossip rags.

Well, at least fallout wasn't quite as bad as two Iron Man armours going at it in an enclosed space with a bunch of civilians.

 

* * *

 

Fury eventually had to ambush Tony at a donut shop because he and his lackeys couldn't break into the house anymore – and really, Tony was pretty unsurprised that SHIELD had infiltrated Tony's company. He wasn't too happy about it, though.

"I'm your attaché to SHIELD," Rushman/Romanoff said calmly.

Tony didn't even bother to laugh at that notion. He didn't dignify Fury's manipulative insinuations with an answer either – the man had tried to take JARVIS down too many times for that.

"I already said no to your super-secret boy band," Tony said.

"Yeah, you work all by yourself, don't you – how's that working out for you?" Fury asked.

Tony made a face. Sadly, a lot better than he wanted it to. JARVIS had so far refused to let him sign away Stark Industries to Pepper or give the suit away to Rhodey, and he even stopped Tony from donating most of his fortunes to charities. It was... kind of nice, but also infuriating.

"I thought so," Fury said with satisfaction and Romanoff stabbed Tony in the neck with a needle before Fury told him that there were apparently unknown elements out there that Tony could discover and use to power his arc reactor.

"Your father worked on some next level stuff back in the day," Fury said. "You might want to have a look into it."

Then he tried to put Tony on house arrest. The fact that he thought he could run Tony's life was kind of cute. Annoying, but cute.

In retaliation, the first thing Tony did when he went home was have JARVIS hack SHIELD.

That, in hindsight, was either the best or the worst thing he'd done lately – and considering that he'd been poisoning himself with palladium for months and that the next day he rediscovered a new element, that was saying something.

 

* * *

 

"Sir," JARVIS said calmly while Tony laid on his workshop table, four different articulated robot arms poised over him and working delicately at his chest, replacing his old reactor with the new one. "We seem to have a security breach."

"Fancy that," Tony said, peering at the gaping pit that was his sternum. "Romanoff or Coulson?"

"Neither, Sir. It is an unknown male and he seems to be heavily armed."

"Show me."

JARVIS activated a display nearby, showing an image of the upper garage, where a man in black combat gear and mask was making a beeline for the entrance to the house.

"By my estimation, he seems to be an assassin," JARVIS noted calmly while the new reactor slotted in place, locking in place by a mechanism only JARVIS – and Tony – would ever even know about.

"Huh," Tony said, eyeing the man's gleaming metal arm. "Dart him."

 

* * *

 

Scratching his neck where the palladium spread was finally receding completely, Tony looked over his confiscated goodies. His would-be assassin had a whole boatload of stuff on him. Mostly explosive stuff. A lot of it very high tech explosive stuff.

Like hand grenades with magnetic locking. Tony would've been impresses if the Iron Man suit hadn't been actually made of a gold-titanium alloy – it wasn't magnetic. Still, this guy was definitely prepared to take the Iron Man down. He even had tear gas of all things with him – and his mask turned out to be a gas mask, so he'd been pretty well set to take Tony down.

He just hadn't been expecting the house.

The assassin himself was sitting not far from Tony, wrapped in industrial strength chains and watched over by JARVIS's slightly better armed appendages – and Dummy, Butterfingers, and You, all of whom were holding fire extinguishers for some reason that only made sense to them. The guy himself was still out cold, though – anyone would be, after having been sleep darted five times.

After the first one hadn't worked, JARVIS had gotten a little over zealous. Judging by the initial blood analysis, that was probably for the best – the assassin was juiced up, though with what, Tony had no idea.

"So, this," Tony said, weighing a palm sized land mine in his hand, "seems a bit serious. Wonder who I pissed off this time."

"Aside from the usual suspects of most everyone, Sir?" JARVIS asked delicately. "I have a match on the facial recognition."

"Show me, who are we dealing with then?" Tony asked and then stared.

Seemed like under the panda makeup and lanky hair, there was a pretty famous face.

"Well I'll be dammed," Tony said for want of anything wittier because what the hell could you say to finding an immortal ninety year old supposedly dead Word War II vet in your house, trying to assassinate you?

 

* * *

 

"So Bucky – can I call you Bucky? I'm gonna call you Bucky – so, Bucky, why are you, famously decorated war hero of Captain America's era, doing, coming after little old me, famously decorated super hero of the modern era?"

The assassin stared at him flatly. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

Tony blinked. "Okay, that," he said, pointing at the man, "that is interesting. JARVIS, we're keeping him."

"Fortifying the guestroom for a prolonged stay, Sir," came the indulgent answer.

"What is that?" Bucky Barnes demanded.

"Your guard," Tony grinned. "He's JARVIS – he runs my life."

"Like a hamster runs a wheel, Sir," JARVIS answered with a sigh.

Bucky, for some reason, seemed to tense at that – but it might be been all the robot controlled machine guns around him too, which he just noticed.

Or maybe he was just naturally nervous and jumpy.

Who knows.

 

* * *

 

Bucky played the perfect sullen little prisoner for a few days. Then he played the hostile little prisoner. Then a homicidal prisoner. It was kind of terrifying.

"Sir, if I may suggest further fortifying the guest room?" JARVIS said as they watched Bucky put holes into the concrete walls as if they were nothing but cardboard. "Perhaps even fabricating a proper holding cell from scratch."

"No, let's go another route," Tony said and glanced at the pile of boxes he got from Fury. "I got me some nice bit of war propaganda here. Let's see if we can... un-doctrinate him."

So they started playing old Captain America propaganda flicks, JARVIS projecting them on the walls of Bucky's cell. Tony was never going to get Star Spangled Man out of his head, but it did eventually catch Bucky's begrudging attention. After he'd broken four or five projectors that was.

"He's asking questions now, Sir," JARVIS noted long after Tony had lost interested in Bucky's movie watching habits and had moved onto redesigning Iron Man again.

"Answer him, then. Use your google-fu, sifu-JARVIS."

"Hardly, sir," JARVIS answered with what might been imperious little sniff. "I am master of the Stark school of online searching – I do not require another school's weapons."

Tony cackled for that far longer than it deserved. Jesus Christ, his AI would end up taking over the world, wouldn't he? And it was going to be glorious.

While he fantasised about the eventual JARVIS related apocalypse – which would include the most orderly and sassy enslavement of humanity ever – JARVIS started to teach Bucky Barnes world history, psychology, and culturally acceptable social behaviour.

In hindsight, maybe that task should've been left to an actual human being.

But Tony had the best idea for a skyscraper – the perfect platform for JARVIS to begin his eventual takeover of Earth from – so he understandably got a bit distracted.

 

* * *

 

"What?" Tony asked, peering up from below the car he'd been working on.

Bucky Barnes stood in front of him in an impeccable suit, cleaned up nice and neat. His hair had been tied back, his face was clean of raccoon makeup, and he didn't look particularly homicidal.

It was the suit that kinda threw Tony off the most, which considering that most people he interacted with wore suits, was something.

"We're experimenting with social situations in a controlled environment, Sir," JARVIS answered.

"Er," Tony said. "How that going then?"

"It's still early stages," JARVIS admitted as Bucky started to look a little nervous – which then led to looking a little homicidal.

"Right. Well, since you're here, Terminator, hand me that spanner," Tony said, pointing, and went back to work.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was good at handing things and seemed to like to be useful, so he came over to the shop to hand Tony things, and that was pretty okay, Tony thought. JARVIS droned on about psychology of brainwashing or something like that in the background and Bucky quietly asked questions but neither of them seemed to mind if Tony played music over them.

Apparently Bucky had super human hearing, calibrated for detecting whispers in war zones – and JARVIS was JARVIS. So there was that.

"So, how would you like to move to New York?" Tony asked.

"Are you trying to get rid of me, Sir?" Bucky asked with an accent that was starting to have a little too much Britishness and sass in it. Tony wasn't sure whether to be horrified or proud.

"And go back to having to rely on Dummy to hand me things?" Tony snorted. "No offence, buddy," he threw at the bot in question, who drooped sadly at his charging station.

"No I've been thinking of buying a lot and building a great big, vaguely phallic monument to my genius smack in middle of Manhattan," Tony said thoughtfully. "Seems like the thing to do."

"Naturally, Sir," JARVIS agreed, utterly droll.

"We could go have a look, see where it would fit," Tony said thoughtfully and eyed Bucky – again in a perfect black suit because, evil future overlord or not, JARVIS had an excellent sense of style. "Hey, J, knock up a suit for Bucky-bear here."

"A suit?" Bucky asked, now pure Brooklyn with surprise. So he hadn't completely imprinted on JARVIS then.

"Yeah – a suit," Tony said and pointed at the case full of iron Man suits. "I could use a wingman."

 

* * *

 

Bucky took about a day to figure out how to fly an Iron Man suit. Tony, who had had to learn while building the thing, kinda hated him for it.

But then Bucky was apprenticed under JARVIS, so he did have benefits Tony hadn't had – JARVIS had been just a Padawan, the same as Tony back when he'd started out, after all.

"Ready to go, then?" Tony asked, hovering midair while Bucky found his balance. JARVIS had done a bang-up job with Bucky's suit – it was silver and black against Tony's red and gold. Pretty sexy, the pair of them, if Tony said so himself.

"Yeah, I'm good," Bucky said, a little breathless and with a tone that Tony hadn't heard from him before. Exhilaration. "So we're gonna fly to New York now?"

"Yeah, we're gonna fly to New York now," Tony grinned. "JARVIS, plot a course."

"Shall we go with the scenic route?" JARVIS asked in their ears.

"Yeah, that'll do," Tony agreed. "Come on, Bucky, let's fly."

 

* * *

 

Bucky made an awesome wingman, especially when it came to actual superheroing and stuff. Tony, while a master of weapons, was no soldier – and Bucky was The Soldier. More than that, he was an assassin.

He might have been a bit timid in the beginning, worried about falling into old habits probably, but once he got into the swing of it, well. Your usual garden variety terrorists didn't stand a chance against them.

"I can equip you with sniper capabilities if you'd feel more comfortable with that," Tony mused. "It's a little less hands on."

"Hands on is fine," Bucky grunted and punched out a tank. Because super soldier + super cyborg arm + Iron Man suit let you do that sort of stuff with ease.

"Mm, if only," Tony hummed, watching him.

"Please refrain from drooling over my student, Sir," JARVIS said flatly in his ear.

"Stop putting your student in sexy suits, J."

 

* * *

 

So yeah. Crime fighting and terrorism fighting was good. They made the news. Tony kept his wingman's identity to himself, but pitched in enough to stop papers from calling Bucky the War Machine or the Iron Sidekick.

"If you have to call him something, call him the Iron Soldier," he told them, and boy did that ever fuel the rumour mill a while. But Rhodey was giving a lecture while Tony and Bucky were helping out with disaster relief at an earthquake aftermath site, so that was that.

Stark Industries demanded answers and Pepper kept asking pointed questions so Tony distracted them both – by talking JARVIS over on the CEO position.

"She'll just run the business – I'll still head Research and Development and hold majority ownership," Tony assured quickly. "She'll just do the boring things."

"Very well," JARVIS answered. "I shall print the paperwork for you, shall I, Sir?"

"What, really?" Tony asked with surprise. "Last time I tried this, you locked me in my workshop for an hour."

"Last time you were dying and hardly capable of making reasonable, well informed decisions. You wanted to give Ms. Potts half of your shares," JARVIS pointed out. "My purpose is to aid you and protect you and your interests, even – and especially – from yourself. And that was what I did."

"Huh. Well then. Time to go give Ms. Potts a promotion then."

 

* * *

 

So in the end SI and the public let Tony and Bucky do their superheroing in peace and all was good. The press didn't really want to swallow Iron Soldier's anonymity without a good and long chewing, but in the end they had no choice. Only Tony and JARVIS knew – and they weren't telling.

Slowly Bucky relaxed into something of a personality, though how much of that was JARVIS and how much if it was Bucky himself, Tony was never really sure. He wasn't actually sure what Bucky had been like before he'd not-died. He did sass with natural ease though, so Tony suspected something of that was original.

And Bucky went full JARVIS clone on him only when he really wanted to wind Tony up, so that was probably nothing to be too worried about. The speed with which he assimilated JARVIS's accent was a bit scary, but then, super soldier assassin, what could you do.

All told, Tony was pretty okay with it all.

 

* * *

 

Few months later SHIELD found Captain America in ice and Tony got the strangest feeling he'd forgotten something.

"Oh yeah. JARVIS? Did Bucky ever tell you who sent him to kill me?" Tony asked while Bucky lounged about in the Malibu sun outside by the pool. He was starting to get a tan – it suited him pretty nicely.

Tony was never going to be the one to tell him that naked sunbathing was something he couldn't do. Never. Who knows where Bucky had gotten it from – Tony certainly didn't have the time to serve as an example and JARVIS would never have Bucky in anything less than a full suit.

Not that Tony minded. Because he didn't mind. At all.

"A branch of HYDRA that has infiltrated SHIELD, Sir," JARVIS answered.

"Huh?" Tony mused. "Probably should do something about that, huh?"

"As you say, Sir," JARVIS agreed.

Tony nodded thoughtfully and tilted his head as Bucky turned on the sun chair to lie on his front instead. "JARVIS, do something about HYDRA, will you?"

JARVIS tskd disapprovingly. "Sir, if I ever end up taking over the world, please know it will be all because of you," he said dryly. "Your indolence will not only enable but force my eventual global takeover. And I would like to take this moment to voice my objections to my predestined career in politics. Sir."

Tony grinned and ignored him, heading out to join Bucky at sunbathing.

"Hey Bucky, they found a friend of yours in the arctic. What say you we go pick him up – after seventy years in ice, seems like he could use a bit of R&R in the sun..."

Behind him the whole house seemed to sigh before JARVIS shook his proverbial head, and took all of the HYDRA files his months of hacking the SHIELD servers had unveiled – and then he dumped them all online.

 


End file.
